


Mister Universe

by Penguinologist



Category: Over the Garden Wall (Cartoon), Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-16
Updated: 2015-09-09
Packaged: 2018-04-15 00:03:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 10,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4585293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Penguinologist/pseuds/Penguinologist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A crossover between OTGW and Steven Universe based on a tumblr post I saw. Greg grows up!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

At four in the morning, March twenty-second, 1977, a seven year old Gregory Herschel lay sound asleep in his bed, clinging tightly to an enormous bullfrog. The frog had long since grown accustomed to its human friend’s overzealous snuggling habits, and was fast asleep as well. And, as usual at four in the morning, both the boy and his frog were dreaming. The frog’s dreams were nothing out of the ordinary- flies, lady frogs, recording contracts, etc. The boy’s, on the other hand, had just taken a sharp turn, as they had done on an increasingly regular basis in the past months.  
  
At first, the night’s dreams had been a fairly standard crop for Greg, which was to say, wildly unpredictable and full of the child’s boundless imagination, featuring nothing more frightening than the campy villains of his favorite Saturday morning cartoons. At four in the morning however, a cold wind swept through Greg’s cotton candy dreamscape, and the world around him began to grow dark. Spindly shadows grew like fingers up around him, and one shadow in particular seemed to tower above him specifically. Tiny hands shaking, Greg pulled from his belt a small wooden sword, which he had previously used to fight off an entire ship’s worth of pirates, and brandished it before the thing. The shadow paused for only a moment, before a laugh that Greg new all too well, a laugh full of tar and despair, one which would shake even the most unshakable of children’s souls to its very core, rolled through the world around him and made him drop his weapon with a gasp. It continued advancing.  
  
Outside the dream, the door to Greg’s room creaked open, just enough for the boy’s brother, who had been awakened by alarmed murmurings of “oh gosh, oh man, oh golly” to stick his head in and look around.  
  
“Greg?” Wirt whispered, squinting into the darkened room, “Are you- oh” he trailed off as his eyes adjusted enough to make out the shape of his sleeping brother’s buckled form shivering on top of his covers. Looking around the room, Wirt could see that Gregory had again forgotten to latch his bedroom window, and the gusty winds of one of the last cold swells of the season had blown it open, creating a draft. Sighing softly, the older boy made his way to the window, careful not to step on any of Greg’s scattered toys, and pushed it shut against the force of the wind. Almost immediately, Greg’s shivering ceased, but his murmuring continued. Sighing again, Wirt went to tuck his brother in, but the moment he was within range of the boy’s stubby arms, Greg’s hands shot out from around the Froggy Funderburker’s waist and grabbed the older boy by the front of his shirt, pulling him in close. Wirt was about to attempt to gently extricate himself from the situation, when he realized that his younger brother was now crying softly into his t-shirt, eyes screwed shut. It was clear he would not be letting go any time soon. With one final face of resigned exasperation, tempered with sympathy, Wirt crawled under the covers of the too-small bed alongside Greg, trying to stay as still as possible so as not to wake the smaller boy. Contrary to what one might have predicted, in the months following the boys’ excursion into the Unknown, it had been Greg rather than Wirt who had been the most negatively impacted by the horrible memory of the experience. Still, Wirt could hardly blame him; as he thought back to that horrible final night in the woods and the monster they had faced there, he too felt a shiver run through him.  
  
What Wirt didn’t notice, what no one noticed late on that cold night in a month where everyone had begun to grow weary of snow, was the shadowy figure, not unlike the one playing in Wirt’s imagination at the same moment, that swept across the family’s front lawn and out into the streetlamp-illuminated roads beyond in the moments after the boy had closed the window. Likewise, there was no one around to hear the hollow ghost of a laugh that chased it, nor the eerie, resounding singing that followed as the thing dashed off into the night.  
  
_  
  
As the months progressed and eventually rolled into years, Greg’s nightmares became less and less frequent, as his trauma receded into the back of his mind. By the time he was in middle school and Wirt was considering colleges, the memory of the boys Halloween adventure had become nothing more than that; a memory. A remnant of the last days of early childhood, the belief in which outlived even that of Santa Claus, but which could not survive the end of childhood itself.  
  
Wirt, on the other hand, who had not been quite so much a child as Greg at the time, was under no delusions about what he and his little half-brother had experienced in those woods that night; the memories were as clear and as fresh to him as his first kiss with Sara Brundige, or their quiet breakup several days later.  
In the wake of such an adventure, Wirt was left confused. At first, he had believed himself to be a better, stronger person for the experience, and the first few months back in the Real World seemed to corroborate that. He had been through his hero’s journey and come out of it the victor, and his poetic side believed that would be the end of his struggles. So what if his relationship with Sara hadn’t worked out? They were still friends, better than they were before.  
  
…At least, that’s what he told himself. The truth was though? He still didn’t feel at home with Sara’s group of friends, and that showed no signs of changing. Eventually, as the constant humiliations of everyday life as a supremely awkward teenager built up, Wirt receded back into his old solitary habits, ignoring the friendly advances of his classmates. Even though he now knew them to be genuine rather than mocking, what could he do? He still found himself uncomfortable around them.  
  
So he went back to being an outcast, his oblivious little brother his only companion, and when Greg started to move away from his childlike irreverence to begin hanging out with kids his own age, Wirt felt that he had lost even that relationship. And somehow, to his great distress, he ultimately found himself missing his time in the woods. How pathetic is that? He had only spent a few days there, and most of it had been just awful. Plus he was pretty sure it was supposed to be, like, purgatory or something? But miss it he did. He missed the sense of adventure, of responsibility, of the… well, not of the control, per say, but of the appreciation for what little control one did have when in such circumstances. He hated himself for romanticizing it so much, especially since, according to his estimation, the whole point of his quest had been to gain the initiative to start really living his life, rather than dwelling on the past like the sad Woodsman.  
  
As Wirt’s antisocial tendencies grew, so too did tensions within his family. His stepdad, despite being a relatively nice man, did not understand Wirt, and their relationship had never been an easy one, and as he progressed into moody teenagerdom, their problems only got worse. It all came to a head one night in the summer of 1982, when Wirt came home past midnight in a drunken stupor and engaged in a shouting match with his stepfather, at the end of which he stormed out of the house. Greg and the boys’ mother ran outside just in time to see Wirt pulling out of the driveway in the family’s old station wagon.  
“Let him go,” Nathan Herschel grumbled angrily, “he’s nineteen. If the dumbass hurts himself, that’s on him”  
  
The next morning, when Wirt had not yet arrived home, Nathan picked up the phone to find the police department calling. With an air of self-satisfaction, the man asked when he should come by to pick up the boy. The officer on the other end of the line informed him stutteringly that there would be nothing to pick up.  
  
Three minutes later, a family of three pushed through a line of police tape, and then a line of police, to find the scene of the crash. Even to Greg, it was obvious from the scene what had happened: Wirt had swerved suddenly off the road and come crashing through the gates of the Eternal Garden Cemetery. Unable to stop, he had plowed through several gravestones, and finally collided with the cobblestone wall at the back of the lot, a large section of which had collapsed on top of his car. Greg could see it all in his mind; the look on his brother’s face, the sound of his scream, the screech of the tires.  
His parents rushed to the sides of the wreck immediately, but young Greg found himself rooted to the spot. He wasn’t surprised when their faces of morbid panic turned suddenly to confusion. He knew- he didn’t know how, but he knew- that there would be no body in that car.  
  
Greg was twelve. Wirt was gone.  
  
-  
Over the next few years, its seemed all Greg’s parents did with one another was argue. It was clear that, on some level, they both blamed themselves and each other for Wirt’s death. They stayed together, however, for reasons Greg would never understand nor ask about.  
  
Greg didn’t let any of this get him down. It wasn’t that he wasn’t troubled by it, but he had different ways of dealing with pain than his brother. Like Wirt with his sad poetry, Greg poured his soul into his art- music and painting, in his case- but unlike Wirt, he had no qualms about sharing his work with the world. Greg would play for anyone who would listen, which, in their small Midwestern town, wasn’t exactly a ton of people. So, when in his Sophomore year of high school, his parents informed him they were moving the family to Florida, Greg was all for it- surely the people of Miami were more receptive to modern music than those of Aberdale. Of course, he knew the real reason they were moving was to escape the painful memories this place held, but like always, he chose to focus on the positive.  
  
Sure enough, once on the east coast, Greg found a small audience for his music, and started spending more and more time outside the house working on it, which of course served the double-purpose of letting him escape the constant bickering of his parents.  
  
Finally, in 1988, when Greg was 19, a man at a local gig approached him and asked if he needed a manager. Any thoughts of how shady the guy looked were quickly overpowered by dreams of fame and fortune as a rockstar, and Greg hired him on the spot, signing an apparently standard starter contract which signed 75% of any of Greg’s profits over to him. And when the man asked if he’d like to do a tour the East Coast, Greg agreed without a second thought. The man even proposed a new stage name for him. After all, “Gregory Herschel” wasn’t very fitting of an up-and-coming Space-Metal artist.  
  
From now on, the man told him, Greg would be known only as “Mr. Universe”.


	2. Birthday in Beach City

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A couple of people said they liked what i wrote the other day, so here's another chapter!

It was dark. And cramped. Outside, he could hear footsteps drawing closer. Closer. He held his breath, fearing that it would betray him, and felt a trickle of sweat drip down his brow. Moments later, a muffled shout alerted him that his position had been compromised. Releasing his breath, he squeezed his eyes shut and resigned himself to his fate.

Suddenly, his whole world rocked to one side, and in the next instant he was sprawled out on the ground, staring up at the sky.

“Ha, I knew it! Guys, I found Steven!” Connie called out, and a second later Peedee and Onion rounded the corner of the Big Donut.

“Aw, Steven,” Peedee complained, “in the crates behind the dumpster? That’s gross man.” 

“Sometimes you have to get your hands dirty if you wanna win!” Steven replied, grinning as he got to his feet. Onion silently nodded his agreement.

“Well, you didn’t win anyway,” Peedee said. “Come on, help us look for Lars, Sadie and Ronaldo.”

“They’re all together?” Steven asked as they exited the alleyway.

“Yeah. At first Lars wasn’t even gonna play, but then Ronaldo teamed up with Sadie and he suddenly changed his mind.” Connie and Steven exchanged a knowing look at that, and then laughed as the group ran off back towards the town.

Today was Steven’s thirteenth birthday, and he had convinced half the town, the gems included, to join in a giant game of Hide & Seek as part of the festivities. In the distance, he could see Amethyst grinning as she overturned things on the boardwalk in her search for Pearl (although Steven suspected she might just be using the game as an excuse to make a mess). Behind her, Greg, Vidalia, and Garnet sat around a picnic table. The two humans chatted amiably while Garnet stared silently off into the distance. True to her word, Ruby and Sapphire had defused for the game of hide and seek, but had been found almost immediately after accidentally fusing and making a large hole in the boardwalk they were hiding under. Steven’s smile widened. It wasn’t often he got to see all his friends together and having fun, and it was the first time the gems had ever agreed to join in his birthday party.

A while later, once all the hiders had been successfully sought, everyone gathered around a big table (really two picnic tables that Greg and Garnet had pushed together) and sang Steven Happy Birthday as Greg lit the candles on his cake. As the last “To yoooooouuu” rang out across the boardwalk, Steven, dressed in all his Birthday-suit finery, inhaled deeply and blew out all his candles in one long breath, to the cheers and applause of everyone present.

Once everyone had gotten their cake and begun to dig in, Greg got to his feet once again and attempted to get their attention by tapping his plastic fork on his plastic cup. Nobody noticed.

“Hey, uh… Hey everybody?” Everyone looked up, “Hey, uh, hi. I just wanted to say, on behalf of Steven and me, how glad I am you could all make it out here today. I think we all know it’s been, ah, kinda a touch year for the little guy, and I just want him to know how proud we all are.” The assembled group cheered for this, and Sourcream (who Greg secretly suspected might be drunk on something a little stronger than “birthday cheer”) held his cup high and cried “To Steven!”, and was met with a similar chorus of cheers. Even Pearl, who had no cup or cake, held up her hand awkwardly in toast. Greg looked down at his son, smiling, and was unsurprised to see him fighting back tears by shoveling cake into his face.

“D’aww, c’mere you,” Greg laughed, sitting back down and pulling his kid into a gentle noogie. And not for the first time, Greg Universe began to feel that somehow, against all odds, everything in his strange, dysfunctional life had turned out just about perfect.

-

Once everyone had had their fill of cake, Steven and the rest of the kids had ran off the Funland with Mr. Smiley and the Maheswarans as their chaperones. Meanwhile, Greg and the Gems cleaned up the mess they had made on the boardwalk, said their goodbyes, and then returned to Steven’s house at the Gem temple with his presents.

“Man, thirteen already,” Greg said, plopping himself down on the living room couch, “can you believe it’s been that long?”

“Greg, we’re thousands of years old,” Pearl replied, “to us, thirteen years is like the blink of an eye.” Garnet nodded in agreement, leaning against the wall opposite him.

“Still though,” Amethyst said, chuckling as she collapsed next to Greg, “Y’gotta admit, it’s been an eventful thirteen years.”

“Mmm, that is true,” Pearl said, tapping her chin, “I never would have imagined when Steven was first born that I would be attending a party with the humans of Beach City because of him.”

“And he’s changed so much!” Garnet exclaimed under her breath, to everyone’s slight surprise, “He was so tiny such a short time ago.”

“Wait until you guys see puberty” Greg chuckled.

“Pooba-wha?” Amethyst asked, her head hanging upside-down off the side of the couch.

“Puberty is the process through which humans achieve sexual maturity,” Pearl responded curtly, “It means Steven will be growing faster soon, and his voice may begin to change.”

“Whoa-ho-ho, like, change into what?”

“It’s a lot more than that, though.” Greg interjected, drawing the gems attention. “Those are important years for a human. It’s when you become an adult. There’s a lot of stuff goin on your brain during that time. For a lot of people it can be really tough, especially when you’ve got a lot on your plate and no one to talk about it with.” Greg was frowning absently at this point. “Not everyone makes it through alright. Some people don’t at all.”

The Gems exchanged a worried glance.

“You don’t think…” Amethyst said, “that kind of stuff wouldn’t happen to Steven, right?” Greg looked down at her in surprise, as if remembering where he was.

“Oh, I uh… I’m… I’m not sure,” Greg replied, rubbing the back of his head, “I mean, my family doesn’t have such a great history with that kind of...” Seeing the gems’ reaction to that, he quickly added, “B-but, Steven’s a happy kid, with a lot of good friends! I’m... i'm sure he’ll be just fine.” They relaxed a little at that, but not much.

The four talked for a while after that, until Steven arrived at the door and Greg picked himself up to go.

“Aww, you’re going already?” Steven whined, holding his dad’s arm.

“’Fraid so, kiddo.” He said, tousling the boy’s hair, “Car washes don’t run themselves, y'know!” He paused for a second to think about that, and then said, “Well, OK, they kind of do, but somebody’s gotta be there to press the button and collect the money!” Steven giggled at that and let go of the man’s arm.

“Allllright,” Steven said, “but come back soon!”

“Will do!” Greg assured him, waving as he stepped through the door, “Happy birthday, kid!”

“Happy B- uh, I mean, G'bye dad!” Greg snorted as he closed the door behind him.

_

Greg was feeling pretty good. It was pretty rare for him to be able to have a long conversation like that with the crystal gems like respectable adults, and it was great to see Steven playing with his friends like a normal little kid again. And- man, what was up with that wind? It was June, wasn’t it? Why did it suddenly feel like late autumn out here? And the closer he got to home, the colder the wind seemed to get. And though he tried to ignore it, he couldn’t shake the feeling that there was someone behind him. Greg pulled up the collar on his jacket and picked up the pace a little bit. He refused to break into a run, though. He had spent more of his life being afraid of the dark than any man should, and he wouldn’t let those old fears get to him tonight.

It was probably just his imagination, but at that moment, Greg could have sworn he heard the ghost of a low, booming laugh, echoing somewhere far behind him. 

…Maybe a little bit of a jog couldn’t hurt. Just to get out of the wind. Cold and embarrassed despite himself, Greg took off into the night.


	3. The Monster and The Man

Later that night, Steven Universe lay sound asleep in his bed, snuggled up tightly against his blankets and stuffed animals. In his mind, he and his friends were playing another game of hide and seek, except this time, he and Connie had chosen to hide together. This being a dream, the exact location of their hiding spot had mysteriously shifted several times, but their proximity to each other remained the same. Steven liked that. Or at least, he usually did.

Currently, they were tucked away in one of the temple’s inner tunnels, somewhere between Amethyst and Garnet’s rooms, and the silence between them was starting to drag on.

“So uh…” Steven started, “How ‘bout that weather we’re havin’, huh? Pretty, uh… nice?” Connie smirked, but said nothing. Steven sighed. He was dimly aware that this was a dream, but still wished he was a snappier conversationalist. He often felt unduly responsible for the entertainment value of his conversations, and when silences got long, he started to feel guilty. Real Connie usually had a way of putting him at ease, but Dream Connie seemed intent on doing just the opposite.

Suddenly, Steven realized he could hear footsteps from down the hallway. Moving quickly, he grabbed Connie’s hand and took off down the hallway in the other direction, grinning the whole time. Peedee wouldn’t get them this time.

They rounded several corners before coming to a dead end. Nuts, Steven thought. Maybe he’d spoken too soon. Resigning himself to yet another loss, Steven began to turn back the way they had come, when he felt a chill. And then what felt like another chill on top of it, and then several more until Steven and Dream Connie were shivering. Finally, a gust of wind blew in and plunged Steven’s world into absolute darkness.

“H-hello?” Steven called out, quivering, “Connie? Peedee? O-Onion?” At first, there was no reply. Then, at the very edge of Steven’s audible range, a low chortle from some unknown, unseen source reached him, and began to rise until Steven had to cover his ears in pain.

“L-Lapis? Jasper?” Steven whimpered into the darkness, “M-M-Malachite? Is that y-AH!!” As Steven spoke, two great orbs of light appeared right in front of his face and scared him half to death.

**_“Not I, Boy”_** A horrible voice replied. Steven shivered again at the sound. It was hollow and dark, and somehow even more piercing than the harsh, white light of the thing’s eyes, or the cold autumn wind that accompanied it. Certainly not the voice of any gem he’d ever heard.

“Th-Then who-“

 ** _“I am called by many names,”_** The thing said, its eyes moving in a way that suggested its body was swirling around him, **_“I am the Voice in the Night, I am the Death of Hope, The Obsidian Cricket of Inevitable Twilight. I am The child of Autumn, the spirit of Winter. But to many, I am known only as- HISSSSSSSSSSSSSS”_** The thing shrieked as a blindingly bright light appeared suddenly behind it, re-illuminating the tunnel and silhouetting the monster in a way Steven wished it hadn’t. He could see now that the thing was shaped basically like an impossibly tall, gaunt person, except that from the sides of its head protruded two long, branchlike antlers.

“Hey, you!” A man’s voice called out from behind the light. The monster whirled around to look at him. “Y-yeah, you! You forget who’s in charge here?” The monster snarled.

 ** _“Foolish man. You know better than anyone that I can no longer be mollified by such paltry threats as that lantern.”_** Still, the thing held back, circling the man menacingly, but not attacking. By the light of the lantern, Steven could now make out that the man was almost as tall as his opponent, and twice as gaunt. He held the lantern out in front of himself, almost like a shield, warding off the demon.

“Maybe so,” The man replied, gingerly pulling the front latch of the lantern open, “but wouldn’t you rather it stayed lit anyway?” the thing hissed at him as he reached inward, ready to extinguish the flame with his fingertips.

**_“If You So Much As-“_** The monster stopped itself, and seemed to take a breath before continuing. ** _“Pilgrimmmm,”_** it hummed, **_“My old friend. You know what would happen if you were to touch that flame, now don’t you? What it would do to the both of us?”_**

“Yeah, but… but maybe I don’t care anymore. Maybe after all these years I’m not afraid of that anymore.” The thing chuckled coldly at that. 

**_“Maybe, maybe… but don’t you care what would become of our young friend?”_** the monster extended a gnarled claw from its misty body in Steven’s direction, and the man gasped, noticing him for the first time. 

The thing saw its chance and took it, slapping the lantern from the man’s grasp and pouncing on him as the object vanished in a puff of black mist. 

“NO!” the man cried as he fell to the ground under the creature, which was now slashing gleefully at his face. “Kid!” the man called out to him desperately, “Wake up! You have to wake up!”  
Steven was about to ignore his instruction and run to the man’s aid, but before he could, he felt the rough surface of a large, feline tongue drag across his face. He jolted awake with a gasp. 

**-**

Lion was standing over him in bed, looking concerned. He licked him again. 

“Uggghhhh, Lion!” Steven groaned, half-heartedly pushing the giant cat’s face away from his own, “Why’dya have to wake me up right then?” he flopped back in his bed and allowed Lion to continue nuzzling him. He would not be getting back to sleep tonight. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeesh Ao3 makes is annoying to bold and italicize stuff. Is there an easier way to do it than just going through and adding tags? Anyway there's a short chapter. :3


	4. An Amethyst and Vidalia Party

“Oh Steven, you know this is exactly what happens when you eat all that sugary cake right before bed and then ride the rides at that horrible ‘amusement’ park,” Pearl said, scrubbing a dish anxiously, “I told Greg, it’s just too much stimulation all at once. That’s it, Steven, I don’t think you should have anymore bir-“

“Peaaaaaarl,” Steven groaned, his head resting in his hand as he half-heartedly shoveled Captain Crunch into his mouth, “This wasn’t just a cake-dream! I’m telling you, it was just like the time I saw Lapis and Jasper!” Pearl rolled her eyes.

“Steven, that’s exactly what you said last month about your ‘Subterranean Mole-men’ dream after Amethyst dared you to eat that entire anchovy pizza.” She returned to the dishes. Steven pushed his cereal around grumpily. He had never gotten back to sleep after the dream, and had spent the rest of the night drifting between several states of semi-consciousness. It couldn’t have just been a dream, could it? Dreams like that didn’t just happen out of the blue! No, there must have been something else going on.

“Yo, Stee-man,” Amethyst said, entering the room with a moldy-looking sandwich In hand, “why you look so down?”

“I had a magic vision but Pearl doesn’t believe me…” he grumbled without taking his eyes off his bowl.

“Dude, you too?” She asked, sitting next to him and leaning in close. Steven’s eyes lit up, and Pearl turned around in surprise. 

“You had a vision too Amethyst?” Steven asked excitedly. She nodded.

“Yeah man. I was all asleep, just walkin’ around in dream-town, when I find this awesome sandwich! Then, I wake up and-“ She brandished her moldy lump of turkey on rye for them to see before tossing the whole thing in her mouth and cackling loudly. Pearl sighed and Steven sat back dejectedly.

“Aw, cheer up dude, I believe you.” Amethyst assured him. His eyes lit up again and he asked,

“You do?”

“Yeaaaaaah, sure, why not.” She replied with a shrug and a hint of sarcasm in her voice, which of course went directly over Steven’s head, “Tell me, whad’ja dream about?”

“OK OK, so at first, I was just playing hide n’ seek with Connie again, and we kept like, teleporting to all these different places, and since it was a dream she wasn’t really talking to me, which to be honest made me a little uncomfortable, but anyway…” Amethyst began to space out as he recounted his dream, and her eyes wandered around the room, eventually coming to rest on the clock on the wall. It took her a moment to register what it said, but when she did, she snapped back to attention.  
“So then this giant shadowy antler monster and tall skinny guy were fighting and I-“

“Oh, shoot, look at the time,” She interrupted, hopping out of her seat, “Sorry Stevie, you’ll have to tell me about it later. I got a hot date!” Before either of them could ask what she meant by that, Amethyst was out the door.

_

It wasn't really a date, she kept telling herself. After all, Vidalia was married now, which apparently meant she couldn’t go on dates. Not, of course, that they had ever gone on dates _before_ she was married either…

Amethyst shook her head of those thoughts and continued into town. She was just going out for lunch to catch up with an old friend. An old human friend. 

After Steven’s party, Vidalia had invited Amethyst out for lunch at the local Crab Shack. Amethyst had agreed enthusiastically. 

She turned the corner onto the street with the restaurant and spotted Vidalia at one of the outside tables almost immediately- her hair was immediately recognizable at any distance- and called out, “Hey, yo girl!”

_

Vidalia looked up from her tray and smiled as Amethyst jogged the rest of the distance. Even after she had dropped by the house the other day, it was amazing (and a little frightening) to see her old friend looking completely unchanged after so many years of absence. Of course, it wasn’t as if either of them had completely dropped off the face of the earth; she would occasionally catch a glimpse of Amethyst and the Gems out on the beach, fighting some monster or another. And then there had been that whole incident with the hand a while back, though she had been busy evacuating to really catch any of the action there.

“Hey Ames. I went ahead and got us-“

“Free food!” Amethyst cheered, leaping into the seat opposite and digging hungrily into the piles of seafood laid out in front of her. Vidalia looked surprised for only a second before smirking and asking,

“Amethyst, do you ever eat any food that isn’t ‘free’?”

“Uhhhh,” the purple gem replied through a mouthful of crab and onion rings, “free to me, or free to everyone?” Vidalia snorted, and Amethyst continued stuffing her face. Luckily, Vidalia had remembered how much food she would need, and had therefore taken Amethyst to the cheapest place in town.

They chatted as they ate. Apparently, Pearl and Garnet had made up for whatever it was they were fighting over, and things were back to normal at the Gem temple. They still had yet to find the rogue gem that had been eluding them since the hand-incident, but Steven had managed to get her foot? That sounded strange, but Vidalia elected to ignore it, knowing that if she chose to focus in on everything she found strange about Amethyst’s life that their conversation would never get anywhere.

“Man Ames, you lead a crazy friggin’ life, you know that?”

“Ha, that’s not even half of it.” Amethyst replied, tossing a crab-shell in her mouth, “Recently Steven’s been having all these crazy nightmares about, like, ghosts and mole-people and stuff, and he won’t shut up about it.”

“Huh,” Vidalia said, tapping her chin, “Must run in the family.” Amethyst swallowed what was in her mouth.

“Whaddaya mean?”

“Don’t you remember?” she asked, taking a sip of her coke, “When Greg first moved to town, he used to have those crazy nightmares practically every night! I had to break into his van to shut him up once cuz his stupid screamin’ was waking up the whole town.” 

“Oh yeah!” Amethyst said, snapping her fingers after a second of reflection, “Man, that was super annoying! You don’t think that’ll happen to Steven, do you?” Vidalia shrugged, taking another sip.  
“It could, but it could just be regular nightmares. “ghosts and mole-people” don’t sound nearly as scary as some of the crap Greg dreamed up, back in the day.”

“yeah, with him it was always some kinda crazy, singing shadow monster right?”

“With antlers!” Vidalia added with a laugh, holding her hands out behind her head as mock-antlers. Amethyst cracked up at that, until a realization hit her and she stopped dead. “Amethyst?” Vidalia asked in surprise, “You ‘kay?”

“Duuuuuuuude…” Amethyst whispered to herself. She stared at the table for a few seconds before saying suddenly, “Hey, you wouldn’t wanna go catch up with Greg, would you?”

“Wh- now?” Vidalia asked incredulously.

“Sure, yeah, why not? Come on!” With that, Amethyst grabbed her hand and took off down the street in the direction of Greg’s carwash, Vidalia in tow. 

_

“Hey, Amethyst, ‘Dalia! What’re you guys doin’ here?” Greg asked, a surprised smile forming on his face as he stepped away from the car he was rinsing but continued to spray it with the hose. “Don’t tell me we’re getting the old gang back together?” Amethyst rolled her eyes at that.

“No man, it’s about Steven.”

“Oh,” Greg said, a little disappointed, “Is he alright?”

“Well, we don’t really know.” Amethyst admitted, “He told you about the dreams he had about Lapis and Jasper, right?” Greg, nodded,

“The Gems at the bottom of the ocean? Yeah, he told me about it, why?”

“Well, y’know how you used to have those bad dreams all the time?” Greg froze. Amethyst seemed not to notice, and proceeded to explain what she remembered about Steven’s description of his dream that morning. As she did, Greg’s smile faded, and several emotions that Vidalia couldn’t quite read ran across his face. By the end of it, his expression was blank, and the stream of water had slowed to a trickle as his grip on the hose slackened.  
“…So then, like, I was just talking to Vidalia about it, and she remembered how you used to-“

“Ehehe,” Greg’s giggle interrupted Amethyst’s train of thought, and she looked up to see a strained, almost painful looking smile plastered across his perennially sun-burnt face. “Well, uh, that doesn’t sound like anything… too serious… you know how his uh… imagination gets sometimes,” He had begun to inch slowly backwards. Amethyst stepped forward as if to stop him, but before she could he said, “I’m sure you guys have it under control, just don’t let him stay up too late, make sure he eats right, brushes his teeth, y’know, all that good stuff-“

“Wait, Greg!” Amethyst protested. He was almost all the way to the door of the car wash building at this point, and was reaching for the door.

“I’mgonnabeprettybusythisweeksodon’tcomebackOKbye!” with that, he slid inside and let the door slam shut behind him. A few seconds later, the blinds on the front window fell shut, leaving the bewildered duo standing alone on the pavement next to the half-washed car and the still-running hose. After a few moments had passed, Vidalia broke the silence:

“What the hell was that about?!”

_

A few hours later, just as Steven was sitting down to eat his dinner, Amethyst burst into the house, ran over to him, and slammed her hands down on his startled shoulders.

"Dude." She said, staring him in the eye, "You gotta tell me more about that dream."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> took me a couple days, but there's another one! Didn't really proofread it, so there might be some mistakes. It's also 4 in the morning so for all I know none of it makes any sense whatsoever. :P


	5. In the Dark of The Night

That night, Steven and Amethyst decided she should stay in the house while he slept, just in case anything happened. For several hours, nothing did, and eventually she began to get bored of watching him and went to take a rest on the couch. Soon, her eyelids began to droop, and a moment later she was slumped against the arm-rest, snoring loudly. That is when things began to happen.

As soon as the two gems were asleep, shadows in the room began to twist elongate around them, creeping inward. Then, just as the shadowy tendrils were about to reach Steven’s bed, a bright blue light and a strange jingly noise emanated from the cave-like room at the back of the house, causing the shadows to withdraw suddenly. A few seconds later, an extremely tall woman with a massive afro stepped into the room, holding something in her large, gloved hands. She looked around suspiciously for a moment before retreating back into the alcove. Curiously, the shadows followed her as she opened and stepped through the door in the cave wall. She paused, as if to turn around, and the shadows retreated slightly, but then continued on into the tunnel beyond, shadows in tow. As they traversed the cavernous temples of the Gem Temple, the shadows marveled silently at the many strange and beautiful sights around them. Garnet didn’t even notice. Eventually, they passed into a chamber that must have been many feet below the ground. At its center was a circular pool of what appeared to be boiling-hot magma, and all around it floated dozens of colored translucent bubbles, each containing a large, shining gemstone of a different kind.

The shadows watched in awe from the doorway as the tall woman opened her hands and released another of these orbs into the air, this one containing a gem that looked like an emerald.

The woman wiped her hands as if preparing to leave, when something seemed to catch her eye and she stopped. A second later, she whipped around, her fists raised in preparation of a fight, but the shadows had already disappeared back down the hallway. They still fully intended to attack the boy before sun-up, but the night was still young, and he wasn’t going anywhere. They wondered what other secrets lay in this strange new place…

_

In another corner of the temple, Pearl floated high above the cascading waterfalls of her room, levitating in zazen mediation. Her legs crossed and her hands forming a relaxed “o” at her lower stomach, she could feel her gem’s spiritual energy flowing far more freely through her physical form than usual. Doing this was one of the few things that could relax Pearl’s frantic mind. While she was like this, her mind was free to wander without judgement or scrutiny without letting her maligned subconscious take over. This made it a much preferable human practice to sleeping in her view.

At the moment, her mind’s eye lingered among fond memories of the distant past, after the end of the war for earth, but still many centuries before Steven was born, during the years the Crystal Gems had roamed the earth in search of… well, many things. Old gem-tech, new human culture, the corrupted remains of those that had once been friends and enemies. In retrospect, it all seemed so pointless, she briefly wondered how any of them had managed not to lose hope in all that time. Of course , she knew the answer to that: Rose. She gave them things to believe in, to continue to fight for.

But she was gone now. In her place, a little ball of human flesh who they were meant to raise. Supposedly, Steven was meant to be the thing that finally delivered them from their endless, pointless existences on Earth, but Pearl often wondered, what if Steven was just another of Roses distractions from the meaninglessness of it all? After all, what could he do that his mother couldn’t? Yes, she saw the potential benefits of a conduit between the gems and the humans, and there could be no better choice for an ambassador than the child of Rose Quartz, but as much as Pearl had grown to love Steven, she had never been able to understand what Greg Universe could possibly contribute to the deal. Yes, yes, he and Rose loved each other, yadda yadda yadda, but from a purely tactical standpoint, which she refused to believe her beloved leader had never considered, there must have been a better candidate for genetic contribution than this second-rate bard who didn’t even own a proper home. She had told Rose as much in the early days of the plan, imploring her to consider someone stronger, wiser, someone with the bearing of a real leader. At least she could have picked a better physical specimen! But Rose just laughed and laughed, dismissing her worries and telling her that she would understand one day.

Pearl shook her head. These were the kinds of thoughts that ruined meditation. It was OK to think about stuff while doing this, but she couldn’t start to dwell on things. She quickly brought her mind back to a blank, white sheet and tried to relax. 

After a moment, neutral thoughts began to return, and she settled back into her position. Her mind drifted to the Gem ship Peridot and Jasper had arrived in, and all the new technology she had seen there. 

This brought her to thoughts of Jasper and Lapis’ fusion, hidden away deep beneath Earth’s oceans. She still wasn’t sure how to feel about that. On the one hand, she was impressed by Lazuli’s courage and discipline in taking her opponent down, and had begun to feel a twinge of guilt for her past interactions with the gem. On the other, she, like Garnet, was pretty horrified by the idea of a forced fusion, and didn’t know on who to lay the blame for those mildly appalling circumstances.

She moved on to Earth’s marine life, in particular the strange and terrifying creatures known as “mollusks”, which humans regularly slurped down in the most revolting way imaginable. This in turn brought her to the local restaurant “Fish Stew Pizza”, which served a strange kind of fusion cuisine which Pearl knew must also be disgusting on account of what a mess it was on a purely aesthetic level. Pearl had to admit, some human food could be artful, but Fish Stew Pizza was not one such example.

She thought idly about the humans of Beach City with whom she had become acquainted in the last several years. They held little interest for her. There were those Fryman boys, with whom Steven was always managing to get into trouble, and that small gang of older hooligans who were always dragging him into their shenanigans. The girl Sadie seemed alright, but her friend with the strange hair was definitely a bad influence. And then of course there was that Onion boy…

Thoughts like these began to cycle around in Pearl’s head, and despite her best efforts to maintain her zen, she could feel frustration and worry mounting inside her, and she was unsure of the source. In one last effort to save her meditation session, she tried once again to make her mind blank, but to her surprise found that inky black splotches began to creep into the edges of her mind’s eye no matter how hard she tried to keep them out. It seemed as if this cloudy darkness- not just shade, but true darkness- was converging on her from some outside source, rather than coming from within. Confused, her eyes snapped open, just in time to catch the receding end of a dark shadow disappearing out the main entrance to her room. With a gasp, she shot to her feet and leapt from the top of the pillar, yelling, “Stop right there!”. By the time she reached the floor, whatever had been there had disappeared down the corridor. Not wasting any time, she took off after it.

_

Back in Steven’s room, Amethyst tossed and turned on the couch, occasionally groaning and swatting at some invisible enemy. In her mind, she was pushing her way through a swamp in the middle of the night, the dark waters around her waist pulling her down as if they were tar. All around buzzed a swarm of impossibly giant flies, all attempting at once to burrow into her hair. She tried several times to summon her whips, but they always got caught in the branches above her and she had to leave them behind. It was like no dream she had ever had before, and as she sank deeper into the muck, she felt as if all her hope was being drained out of her. It would be easier, a voice in her head told her, just to give in to the darkness. She found herself inclined to agree.

“Ah! There you are!” The sound of the familiar shrill cry woke Amethyst from her nightmare with a start. Groggily, she looked around. As her eyes adjusted, she realized that Garnet and Pearl were standing in front of her, weapons drawn, staring at something above her head. Still shaken and half-asleep, Amethyst crawled up on the back of the couch and peeked her head over the side of the landing to see what they were looking at. She gasped.

Standing over Steven’s bed was the silhouette of an enormous figure, and though Amethyst had not heard its description directly in years, she recognized it immediately; the horrible gaunt frame, the hunch of its back, the long, gnarled, arms protruding from its body like branches, cloaked in the same utter blackness that seemed now to be swirling around the room, and which she realized now had been invading even her dreams. But when the thing turned its head, and she saw the cold, hard white light of its eyes, she knew there could be no mistake; this was The Beast.

What both father and son Universe had failed to mention however, was what the monster revealed when it turned to look at the gems, causing them all to take a step back in surprise and disgust. 

A smile. 

A grin, really. Like the Cheshire Cat from that old story Steven had loved so much as a baby, the thing smiled, but unlike the cat, this being’s teeth were neither white nor pointed- that would have been all too expected. Instead, the Beast had two long rows of tiny, crooked, far too numerous, but still undeniably human teeth protruding from its swollen pink gums. More than that, Garnet recognized with revulsion that these were _baby_ teeth, the kind that humans usually lost as children. _What is this thing??_ she thought in alarm.

Still shocked by the sickening contrast of the thing’s smile, the Crystal Gems could only watch in dismay as its grin turned into a horrible laugh as it turned back to the sleeping boy, who was now curled up in a shivering ball. Remembering the threat to Steven, the gems snapped back to attention.

“You get away from him!” Pearl yelled. The beast only chuckled in response as its long arms extended again over Steven’s tiny form, dripping out long tendrils of black smoke as they went. So, with a battle cry loud enough to be heard back in Beach City, Amethyst crouched down into a ball and used her spin-attack to launch herself at the creature. It looked as if she was going to make contact, but at the last second, the Beast’s body seemed to turn into the same black mist that it had been exuding, and it reappeared on the other side of Steven’s bed, leaving Amethyst sprawled on the floor. The other two gems moved to attack in kind, but before they had the chance, the Beast collapsed on top of Steven, coming back up a second later- just in time for the gems to see Steven’s pajama’d legs disappear into its open maw. Pearl and Garnet both released cries of outrage and launched themselves at the creature, but it was two late. With one final cackle of triumph, the thing swirled its way out the open window, into the night beyond. 

Of course, the crystal gems gave chase, but once they were outside, the monster was nowhere to be found. The Beast was gone.

And so was Steven.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ¯\\_(o_O)_/¯


	6. Fatherhood

After Greg slammed his door in Amethyst and Vidalia’s faces, he plopped himself down in the little chair behind the car wash counter and stared for a few moments at the wall in the dark. Then, deciding he wasn’t quite up to a chair right then, he slid down on the floor and curled up in a ball, rocking back and forth slightly.

_What was_ that _? What kind of a grown man DOES something like that??_

A small part of his mind was berating him for running from the... but no. The rest of his mind shut down those thoughts before they could even be put to words, unwilling to acknowledge exactly what it was he was running from, except for the fact that he _was_ in fact running, and that he _was_ , in fact, a coward. 

_“But Steven!”_ part of him cried out, causing him to screw his eyes shut and bury his face in his hands. Steven would be fine! The Gems would be able to handle… whatever it was that was bothering him. Right? They fought crazy monsters all the time and Steven always came out of it just fine! Of course, Greg wasn’t exactly proud of running from those situations either.

For a second, he flashed back to that awful day when the Gem homeworld ship had descended from the sky, threatening to pluck away everything and everyone he had left. He remembered Steven’s battered face when he’d found them among the wreckage and the panic that had gripped him at that moment. And though he’d forced himself to put on a calm face, he’d promised himself at the end of the day that he would never let something like that happen to Steven again. But now...

“Ah jeez…” Greg muttered into the dark, rubbing the side of his head. Still, he did not get up. Hours later, he staggered out of the building, his breath reeking of cheap beer, and collapsed face-down into the back of his van, not even bothering to close the doors before beginning to snore loudly into his giant pile of dirty clothes.

It was the first time he’d drank since Rose was alive.

_

Hours passed. The sun set and the moon rose high in the sky, half-full and shining a bright, warm yellow. The last citizens of Beach City went to sleep, and the only sound that could be heard for a mile was the chirping of crickets and the light crash of the nighttime waves on the beach.  
_“Hey! Hey, wake up!”_ The voice woke Greg with a start.

“Hoo-bluh?” He mumbled, lifting his head off his makeshift pillow and looking around in confusion.

_“Yes, ha! You’re awake! C’mere, quick!”_ With surprise, Greg realized the voice was coming from the front seat of the car, but when he made his way over the pile of junk in the way, he found it empty. He gulped.

“Who… where are you?” He asked the empty car, massaging the side of his head with his palm.

_“Up here, stupid!”_ A second voice called out, female this time. Greg looked up in the direction of the voice and spent several seconds trying to register what he was seeing. When he did, he whipped around, and then whipped around again, and squinted. There, reflected in the rear-view mirror, were two people, a man and a woman, who were not there in real life.

And one of them looked terrifyingly familiar. Greg’s eyes widened with recognition.

“W-W-Wi…Wir-“ He spluttered. The man’s face, though gaunt and sunken, beamed with joy.

_“Greg.”_ He whispered, smiling ear-to-ear. A wave of emotion hit the old rock-star like a freight train, and he staggered backward, tripping and landing hard on the old mattress on the floor. For a long moment, no one said anything. Then, finally, Greg met his older brother’s eye, smacked his forehead and burst out laughing. The couple in the mirror exchanged a look of confusion.

“Ahahaha, _HOOOO,”_ he exclaimed eventually, flopping down onto the mattress and wiping a tear from his eye, “life… is weird, man.” 

“Uh, heh,” Wirt Herschel chuckled in reply, “You’re tellin’ me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok REAAAAAL short chapter this time but we got some good stuff comin up i think


	7. Fatherhood, Pt. 2

Wirt was welcome at O’Doyle’s. Well, he wasn’t _unwelcome_. No one was, that’s what made it so great. At this little hole-in-the-wall pub, a lanky, depressed 19 year old like Wirt could feel right at home among the drunks and drecks of society. Sure, maybe they weren’t the most _prestigious_ group around, but that’s what made them so appealing! They were the outcasts, the loners with nowhere else to go, seeking only the meager comfort of a barkeep’s nod and the bottom of glass of whiskey. Yes, this was the life for Wirt.

He slurringly told as much to the man sitting next to him, who may have been silently ignoring him, sleeping, or dead of alcohol poisoning. That was ok, Wirt was content with his vague approximation of a captive audience, and continued to prattle on about his many woes, making sure to romanticize certain details as he saw fit. In the world of Wirt’s drunken tirade, his step-father was an abusive monster hell-bent on driving his family apart, who had now decided to force Wirt out of the house and into college. Of all places! College! Unbelievable. Unbelievable!

Wirt repeated the word several more times for emphasis before taking another large swig of his Whiskey-and-ginger-ale and continuing.

This wasn’t the first time Nathan (as Wirt had just decided to call him forever) had tried to ruin Wirt’s life. Not by a longshot. Ever since he’d realized he could never replace Wirt’s real father, he’d been on the warpath. He had been the one to drive a wedge between him and Sara! Well, maybe not that, but he had definitely laughed when Wirt cried over it at breakfast the next day, the evil, evil man. Worse, he had gotten to Greg with all his crap, and now even they hardly hung out anymore. Why? What was it about his misery that made the man so happy?

Having worked himself into a frenzy, Wirt stumbled angrily to his feet, staggered to the door and into the pouring rainy night beyond, and fell hard into the driver’s seat of the beat-up old family station wagon. Had the bartender not been washing dishes in the back at that moment, he never would have let the young man drive.

By some miracle though, Wirt managed to make it home safe and sound. When he lurched into family’s living room, he was greeted by the sight of his step father waiting for him in the arm chair opposite the door. The look on his face told Wirt everything he needed to know, and all the rage that had begun to fade on the car ride home came rushing back to him. In a moment they were at each other’s throats, screaming obscenities and empty threats that neither one of them really heard. Neither noticed when Greg and Olivia Herschel appeared at the top of the stairs.

Finally, unable to contain his frustration any longer, Wirt took an ineffectual drunken swing at the older man, who sidestepped easily before placing a hand on the disoriented teen’s chest and pushing him down. In Wirt’s inebriated state, it was enough to send him sprawling, and he found himself on the floor wiping angry tears from his eyes. Through the fog, he could see his stepfather standing over him, scowling.

Humiliated, drunk, and defeated, Wirt mumbled something incoherent before stumbling back out the door and into the rain. Not knowing what else to do, he got back in his car and drove off into the night. 

_

It was dark, and the road was wet. Even with the high-beams on, he could only see a few yards ahead of him, but Wirt barely even noticed. He just wanted to drive, drive and get as far away from that house, that family, that _life_ as he could. The high of his fury had begun to wear off again, and he was faced with a fact that had become increasingly apparent in the past months; he was a failure. Only 19 and he’d already managed to screw up his whole life, seemingly permanently. In his last two years of high school his grades had plummeted, and in the end he'd barely passed. After that, no regular college would take him (not that he’d applied to many), and he’d stopped attending the local community college within a week of starting. Since then, he’d worked three jobs, and had been fired from each for not showing up. He had no friends and no future. Worse, he had lost that poetic spark within himself that he once had truly believed made him special; he no longer found words of beauty in his pain, and when he did, they sounded to him like a sad mockery of the work of real artists. He wasn’t an unappreciated genius. He was a stupid, antisocial jerk. Now all he could do was drink until he was stupid enough to blame that on others.

Wirt drove around his tiny Indiana town several times that night, alternately lamenting his wasted life and berating himself for undeserved self-pity. He was a pretty good driver, even drunk and in the rain, especially as there was no one else around to clog up the roads. However, one can’t simply have a night like this and expect to return in the morning. Fate had other plans for him that night, and they came in the form of a tiny, black turtle.

When Wirt saw it, crawling slowly across the middle of the road, he jerked his arms instinctively to the right, far past what was probably necessary. In the seconds that followed, he had the brief opportunity to reflect on the fact that, had he not swerved, the turtle would have probably passed harmlessly under the car anyway, and if not, what did he care? Just a turtle. Regardless, that is how he reacted, and as he careened through the graves of the Eternal Garden Cemetery in what felt like slow motion, he thought for the shortest moment that at least his final act had been a kind one.

Then, as quickly as was physically possible, his brain told him that that was stupid. In the next instant, he was gone.

_

Death was not at all how he had imagined it. There were no clouds, no harps, no singing choruses. Happily, there were also no pits of fire or brimstone either. There was, however, a voice. And it was one he recognized.

“Wirt?! Oh, cheese and crackers, Wirt!” Wirt’s head snapped to the side, in the direction the voice was coming from. He was lying flat on his back in the dirt next to a riverbank in a forest that looked to be on the verge of autumn. To his side, he could see a ginger girl who looked to be about his age, grumbling as she frantically pushed her way through a thicket on her way towards him. For a second, he was confused, as the last time he had heard that voice, it had belonged to a bluebird. But then- oh. Ohhhhhhhhh.

“B-Beatrice?” Wirt croaked, sitting bolt upright.

“Wirt!” She cried, bursting through the last of the foliage and running towards him.

“Beatrice?! How- OOMPH!” His questioning was silenced when she scooped him into a bear hug tighter than any he had received in a long time. After a moment’s hesitation, he hugged back with similar enthusiasm.

“But how?” She finally asked, pulling out of the hug but keeping her hands on his shoulders.

“I don’t know!” He replied, “One second I’m driving down the street and the next…” Wirt trailed off. Of course. Of _course_ he would end up here! He didn’t know whether to laugh or groan at the turn of events.

Beatrice was staring at him, confusion and worry starting to overwrite the happiness on her face. It was then that he noticed for the first time that the face in front of him was actually kind of… pretty. Very pretty, actually. Like, really really pretty. Pretty in the way that kind of made Wirt’s heart beat faster and his armpits start to sweat. What had he been thinking about? Crap, she was talking to him.

“Hey, moron!” She said, waving a hand in front of his face, “you still there?” She cracked a crooked smile. After a second, he returned it.

“Oh! Uh, yeah, sorry.” He said, his cheeks turning slightly red. “..Hey, wait a sec, where’d you come from? How’d you find me?”

“I was just walking our mule home when I saw you passed out over here!” She replied, jerking a thumb in the direction she’d come, revealing a small dirt road behind her. “Here, can you stand? It’ll be dark soon, we should get back to my house.” She helped him to his feet (he was nursing a pretty nasty hangover), and they began walking back towards the trail. As they did, Beatrice took in her old friend’s strange new clothes and greatly increased height.  
“Man, what _happened_ to you??” She blurted out, not really thinking about what the answer would be. For a moment, Wirt just looked confused by the question, but then he sighed and just said,

“I wish I knew.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> suggested listening for this chapter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhk-DiPqhr8
> 
> not that you can really use it now...


End file.
